The importance of increasing the visibility of people with disabilities in the media

Gemma Taylor

The leading disability charity umbrella group, VODG, is publishing a series of essays this week looking at the key issues facing people with disabilities, in the different areas of their lives.

Each essay includes new research from Demos conducted specifically for the essays. United Response has contributed to this collection an essay looking at how disabled people in the UK are portrayed in the media.

We are planning to blog our essay as three excerpts. The first discusses the importance of increasing the visibility of disabled people in the media. We hope this encourages fair representations and fosters greater inclusion and understanding of people with disabilities.

‘We need more TV programmes that treat disabled people as normal.’ That’s what one person with a learning disability told us last year when we were researching our report Superhumans or Scroungers, which investigated public understanding of disability. We wanted to explore the legacy of the Paralympic Games and whether the huge increase in public visibility for disabled athletes had been sustained and had benefited ordinary disabled people.

This person was far from alone in being frustrated by the polarised way the media portrays disability. While writing the report, we found that many disabled people felt the media was only interested in their lives when they were celebrating them for sporting achievements, or demonising them as possible benefit cheats. Nor is this frustration with portraits of disability new. Thirty years ago, the famous disabled writer and activist Paul Hunt wrote: ‘We are tired of being statistics, cases, wonderfully courageous examples to the world, pitiable objects to stimulate funding.’

Now, almost two years after the Games, we asked Demos to investigate if the Paralympics have changed this skewed picture. Unfortunately, Demos’ research proves that disabled people are still poorly represented in the media: 53 per cent of the public agree that they see disabled people more in real life than in newspapers or on TV, while just 15 per cent think they see them more often in the media. Closing this gap between reality and representation could be one of the most important steps towards a more equal society, since the media plays such a major role in shaping public attitudes.

Not only are portrayals of disability relatively scarce, but many people also worry about how those few portrayals are skewed. When the media does feature disabled people, they tend to be cast in roles which emphasise their disability. According to Demos’ research, 29 per cent of the public report that the last time they saw a disabled person in the media, they were portrayed in the ‘superhuman’ or ‘hero’ role. Rather more troublingly, 7 per cent said the last portrait they saw of a disabled person was as a ‘scrounger’, while 12 per cent had seen the disabled person as tragic ‘victim’.

It is clear that the way the media portrays disabled people has an impact on how they are perceived and treated. In 2012, the campaigning group Disability Rights UK launched a report which found just how much distress the hostile ‘benefits cheats’ coverage had caused. One person said ‘daily hounding in the press’ had left her feeling suicidal, while another reported the impact it had on the people around her: ‘People around me have started treating me differently, like I’ve done something wrong.’

In 2011, Glasgow University confirmed the link when it organised focus groups which showed that people assumed that up to 70 per cent of disability benefit claims are fraudulent, and cited newspaper articles on ‘scroungers’ as being part of the reason. The actual figure, incidentally, is 1 per cent. More recently, in May, Scope conducted its own research into public perceptions – Current Attitudes Towards Disabled People – and found that 36 per cent of the public think of disabled people as less productive than their non-disabled counterparts.

In the next instalment of the essay, we will be looking at the importance of the media portraying the ordinary lives of disabled people as opposed to a person’s disability being the only focus of media interest.

If you want to find out about how you can help change the way that disabled people are portrayed in the media, then why not join the Foundation for People with Learning Disabilities latest campaign, to call on the media to do more to uphold the regulations outlining how people with learning disabilities should be portrayed in broadcasts.

The Government’s position on the interpretation of regulations around the National Living Wage is causing huge confusion. As a result the delivery of community based services, for people with learning disabilities, which are proven to work well, are under real threat.

The Government’s position on the interpretation of regulations around the National Living Wage is causing huge confusion. As a result the delivery of community based services, for people with learning disabilities, which are proven to work well, are under real threat.

Disability charity, United Response, hosted a working lunch event on Friday 16th June to celebrate the positive work that is being carried out in Greater Manchester to help unlock the employment potential of the 65,000 people with learning disabilities living in the area.

Learning Disability Voices, the leading coalition of not-for-profit, private and voluntary sector providers of learning disability care services, has today launched its 2017 Care Crisis Manifesto which can be read here.

Our Operations Director, Sarah Battershall, gave evidence today to the Public Accounts Committee on the Government’s transforming care agenda and whether the quality of care for people with learning disabilities is improving.

Become a support worker for United Response and help disabled people in their communities at home. You’ll help them cook, clean, pay bills, apply for jobs, make friends and a thousand things in between.

Easy News is the first news magazine designed to be accessible for people with learning disabilities, aimed to encourage discussion around news stories and keep readers informed about the world around them. Read the latest issue here.

We work with young people and adults with a wide range of learning disabilities across England and Wales. To plan the right kind of support, we work closely with each individual and the people who are important to them. In this way, they get the support they want, in the way they want.

ROC (Robert Owen Communities) has Wellbeing services in Devon and Cornwall, which we can support you to attend. ROC’s Wellbeing services offers you the opportunity to learn new and exciting skills and gain accredited learning qualifications at the same time.